A strike is in no one’s best interest, and it’s baffling as to why union leadership would call one when we’re offering terms in which our employees in these contracts – some of whom average from $115,000 to $148,000 in total compensation – will be better off financially.

We’re prepared, and we will continue working hard to serve our customers. This involves less than 14 percent of our employees.

What’s most important is we’re all family, whether you’re a union member or not. Like any family we have our disagreements but we’ll sort them out. We’ve reached 29 fair agreements since 2015 covering over 128,000 of our employees, and we’re confident we can do the same here.

Additional detail:

We’re offering generous terms in these negotiations including annual wage and pension increases, as well as comprehensive healthcare benefits, similar to what other employees across the country have ratified in other contracts. We’re confident employees will be better off financially in their new contracts.

We have systematically and thoroughly prepared for a potential work stoppage, and we have a substantial contingency workforce of well-trained managers and vendors in place.

Additionally, we will leverage every technological resource available to us to respond to customer needs.

Our network is among the most technologically sophisticated in the world, allowing us enormous flexibility in operations.

We have the ability to service customers’ calls by routing them among available call centers across our network.

We’re proud to be a union-friendly employer, with more full-time, union-represented employees than any company in America. We’re the only major wireless company with a unionized workforce.

Over 20,000 of our CWA-represented employees last month approved an early agreement that includes a commitment to hire 3,000 people sourced from work that’s currently performed mostly offshore.

We announced another agreement last month with the IBEW that included an announcement that we’ll be hiring 1,000 people and opening a new call center in Chicago.

In a press release about the agreement, IBEW International President Lonnie R. Stephenson said “This is a fair and mutually beneficial agreement that helps employer and employee alike.

It is a testament to the strong relationship between the IBEW and AT&T and shows the way to building strong labor-management partnerships in the telecommunications industry.”

The strikers told us a few things they want are better wages and to stop their jobs from being outsourced.

An AT&T representative told us it's baffling as to why union leadership would call for a strike when some of the employees make up to $148,000 in total compensation, but some local AT&T employees are outraged, saying they don't make anywhere near that much.

"This call center that I'm in now is making $30,000 to $40,000 a year, and that's not even our biggest problem," said Danielle Hoffman, an AT&T employee. "The problem that they're not addressing is and they're sweeping under the rug is the 50/50 model they want to go to."

We're told AT&T's plan is to keep 50 percent of all customer and call center calls here in the U.S. and 50 percent will be outsourced to other countries.

This is considered a short strike. We're told these employees will return to work on Monday.

If no agreement can be reached, their union president told 14 News a longer strike is possible.

A prayer service was held to begin the healing process for people in Union County. The people of Union County are still dealing with loss, but today was about healing. Community members gathered outside the Union County Court House in Morganfield this afternoon for a prayer service.

A prayer service was held to begin the healing process for people in Union County. The people of Union County are still dealing with loss, but today was about healing. Community members gathered outside the Union County Court House in Morganfield this afternoon for a prayer service.

(AP Photo/Jennifer Kay). Six crosses are placed at a makeshift memorial on the Florida International University campus in Miami on Saturday, March 17, 2018, near the scene of a pedestrian bridge collapse that killed at least six people on March 15.

A matter of seconds between those who would live and those who would die as Florida pedestrian bridge topples down highway bustling with passing vehicles.

Authorities say a missing Pennsylvania teenager and a 45-year-old man who frequently signed her out of school without her parents' permission have been located in Mexico, and the man has been arrested.

Authorities say a missing Pennsylvania teenager and a 45-year-old man who frequently signed her out of school without her parents' permission have been located in Mexico, and the man has been arrested.

(Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP). FBI agents work the scene of an explosion in Austin, Texas, Sunday, March 18, 2018. At least a few people were injured in another explosion in Texas' capital late Sunday, after three package bombs detonat...

Officials reported that an explosion in southwest Austin injured two men in their 20s who were hospitalized with injuries that didn't appear to be life-threatening.

(Joe Ahlquist/The Rochester Post-Bulletin via AP). Emergency personnel respond to the scene of a fatal stabbing Saturday, March 17, 2018, at the Salvation Army Castleview Residence in downtown Rochester, Minn. Police have arrested a man in the multiple...

Police have arrested a man in the fatal stabbing of two men at a Salvation Army apartment building in downtown Rochester, Minnesota.

Conway parents were arrested for unlawful neglect of a child after their baby was allegedly thrown from his car seat, according to a police report from Horry County Police. 20-year-old Juliana Biggerstaff and 22-year-old Jacob Lowman were arrested on Thursday after a complainant called police. Officers responded to a residence on Woodwinds Drive in Conway on March 14. Upon arrival, officers located a baby boy with a “visible injury to the top of his h...

Conway parents were arrested for unlawful neglect of a child after their baby was allegedly thrown from his car seat, according to a police report from Horry County Police. 20-year-old Juliana Biggerstaff and 22-year-old Jacob Lowman were arrested on Thursday after a complainant called police. Officers responded to a residence on Woodwinds Drive in Conway on March 14. Upon arrival, officers located a baby boy with a “visible injury to the top of his h...